Thanks to a transport nerd of a minister, the UK has another shot at trams and it’s sensibly looking to France for inspiration — but transport watchers note we’ve heard such promises from a Labour government before.
British Transport Minister Louise Haigh is clearly a bit of a tram fan — she’s tweeted her excitement at getting to drive one — and if reports in The Times are correct, she’s eyeing up the success of light rail in smaller French cities as inspiration for a UK transport revolution.
According to the newspaper, Haigh will on Thursday unveil an “Integrated National Transport Strategy”, and will reportedly point to Dijon as an example of how the UK could be, after spending a day touring the city of 164,000 and riding its network of 37 stations back before Labour took power.
That report shared some revelatory figures about the tram systems in (or lacking in) the two countries, notably that every French conurbation above 150,000, the newspaper reports, but Leeds — where Haigh will deliver her speech — has more than 822,000 residents and no rapid transit of any sort, though potential routes are being discussed with plans to have a network in place in the region by 2028.
Meanwhile, France has 28 tram or light rail networks, with more on the way.
That’s a shame, as trams are ideal for urban transport as they tend to be faster and more reliable than buses, require less infrastructure than heavy rail, and come with no operational emissions — plus, people tend to like them.
“It’s clear that trams make a big difference when it comes to traffic,” says Oliver Green, the former curator of the London Transport Museum and the author of Rails in the Road and Trams and Trolleybuses. “And of course they are emissions free.”
And they are popular. “In Manchester, they prefer trams to buses, and they’re actually a positive asset to the city,” Green says.
Tram history
The UK used to be covered in such urban tramlines, and London alone had more than two-dozen networks.
Six of the UK lines have a network length totalling 125km, but in the 1930s the tram network of Birkenhead had 2km more than that on its very own, according to CityMetric.
But a preference for cars and buses saw the infrastructure heavy systems ripped out. Now, there’s just seven networks across the UK, built between 1980 and 2014 — as well as the Blackpool Tramway, a historical line first built in 1885 that carries millions of passengers annually despite being one of the oldest electric trams in the world.
Funding trams
What works about Dijon? Good coverage, cheap and simple fares, and funding from a local business tax, with the system overseen by a single, integrated transport body, says the Times report.
But can that be replicated in the UK? Christian Wolmar — the author of Are Trams Socialist? as well as a shelf full of other train and transport books — says we’ve heard such promises before, by the very same Labour party set to make Thursday’s pledge to invest in public transport.
“In 2000, they announced they were going to do 25 tram schemes over the next ten years, and they did one,” he says. Green echoes that sentiment: “It was talked about a long time ago in the last Labour government, and it never happened.”
That year, the Labour-led government unveiled a ten-year transport plan that included rolling out trams in 25 towns and cities. That didn’t happen. Croydon’s trams started service in 2000, Nottingham’s Express Transit system opened in 2004, while Edinburgh’s trams were unveiled in 2014 and extended last year.
The challenge is funding, says Wolmar. In France, local companies above 11 employees can be subject to a payroll tax called Versement Transport that helps boost funding. “The pot of money is available,” says Wolmar. “And they have a much more social democratic view towards transport, where they recognise its important for social advancement, rather than viewing it in a solely financial way.”
In the UK, no such local funding system exists, and though of course the British government will consider the business case of tram networks, it’s looked at in a “very narrow way,” says Wolmar. That fails to consider the significant knock-on benefits of having a tram network on a city.
Beyond that, in the UK it’s more expensive because of a different way of considering who pays for roads and the utilities infrastructure below them. Where a tram network traverses roadways, utilities must be removed from underneath the path. In France, the utility companies pay for that change; in the UK, the transport project pays, adding to the cost. “That’s a big barrier to getting these schemes built,” Wolmar says.
Haigh hopes for more trams
Haigh will have to address such funding gaps, or find a way for a government with a tight budget to cough up some cash, in order to revive trams in the UK. But it’s a start at least, to have Haigh pledging support — even if we’ve heard such promises before.
“I’m as excited as anybody to get more tram schemes, but they do take a long time and they require considerable capital investment,” says Wolmar. “I wouldn’t jump the gun on this before we look at precisely what Louise Haigh is talking about. It’s a great idea, but has it got any real impetus behind it?”
As Green puts it: “Talking about it is one thing, and actually doing something is another.”
Here’s hoping having a tram-loving transport minister who actually nerds out on transit systems means progress can finally happen.
